


The Battle of Magnolia Drive

by DarkShadeless



Series: Magnolia Drive [4]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Halloween story, Mwahaha, Who dares enter the creepy forest?, much to Walter's chagrin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 21:36:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20216653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkShadeless/pseuds/DarkShadeless
Summary: Beware, ye fools, who think to enter here with hoe and garden shears. Your souls may well be forfeit.





	The Battle of Magnolia Drive

**Author's Note:**

> You have no idea how much I enjoy this XD I swear this could take place in Hobbiton and I love it.

Ah, yes. The grueling, drawn out confrontation that would go down in the annals of gossips the whole region over as ‘The Battle of Magnolia Drive’.

It’s a bright, sunny day when the first onslaught begins. Or at least it is until you set foot on Magnolia. On Magnolia proper the sky is clouded and a faint but icy drizzle soaks anyone fool enough to trespass. Wind howls through the trees. All in all, it manages to look even more unwelcoming to strangers than usual. It’s almost as if it knows what’s coming but that’s ridiculous. It’s a _street_.

That is what Walter tells himself when he pulls up in his cheerful, green van. He double checks the address against the street sign. Yup. Magnolia Drive, Laona. This is it. “I guess this is our stop.”

On the passenger seat his Scyther looks about as enthused as a pokemon can. “Scyth.”

“Oh, come on. How bad can it be?”

Famous last words.

The _Valley Gardeners_ – _Landscaping and Gardening Inc. _is not the biggest company there is but it’s a decent one. Most importantly they are a local establishment, quite respectable, and ready to take on anything from Aunt Matilda’s unruly rosebushes to That Cabin Out There Grandpa Had, Ten Years Ago. There’s not much that can faze them.

Walter considers himself something of a veteran where gardening is concerned. Why, last month he had to wrangle a whole glide of Cutiefly that took offense to him trimming the flowerbeds he was supposed to put to rights and… let’s just say that’s more of an experience than it sounds. Those things are _quick_.

Anyhow. He is not at all worried about his latest job. Really. Magnolia might look a bit of a mess but that will be cleared right up in a jiffy. No problem. Be a pretty sight once he’s done.

He’s humming to himself, cleaning away swathes of old leaves and cobwebs, when that view is first called into question a little. Looks like the road is longer than he thought. Maybe he should get out the industrial vacuum… “What do you think, Scyther? Vacuum sounds good, no?”

There’s no answer. Walter pauses in his work. “Scy?” It had been right there, doing its own thing and grumping about the cobwebs gumming up its blades just a minute ago. “Scyther, come on, this isn’t funny. We’ve got work to… do…”

Something chitters quietly in the trees. It's not quite right, for a bird. Now that he thinks about it he has yet to see any birds.

Slowly, Walter looks up. Overhead, a good fifteen feet above ground, hangs his Scyther, trapped in the same cobwebs it was cutting up and struggling furiously. In the light of his headlamp several Spinarak scuttle away from it. Oh dear. Oh _dear_.

It takes him the better part of a half hour to get his Scyther free again. Those little buggers sure make some sturdy nets. “Should’ve known,” Walter grumbles to himself, spraying his pokemon with all-natural cleaning solution carefully. “Cobwebs gotta come from somewhere, yeah?”

“Scyth.”

“Yes, yes, you told me so.”

Now that Scyther is down from where the Spinarak had strung it up they’re back in business but it looks like this whole area is a tough case. “So much for the slow approach, I guess. I say we go over this part with a few Slashes, maybe a Razor Wind. Should be the end of that nonsense.” They can always do the detailed work after.

Scyther looks at him as if he is an idiot. Actually, no it doesn’t. It looks _past him_, with that fixed sort of attention that makes Walter’s hair stand on end. “Scy? What is it?”

“Scy… ther.”

With his stomach in a twist, Walter turns around against his better judgement. Right behind him, pinchers on a height with his eyes, the biggest, meanest Ariados he has ever seen is hanging upside down on a freshly spun thread.

* * *

Somewhere at the other end of the road Annie pauses in stirring her strawberry jam. “Did you hear that?”

Mimi looks up from where it was staring into the pot intently. “Mi?”

“Huh. Nevermind. Let’s add a little more sugar.” Her assistant rushes for the right cabinet immediately, jockeying about who gets to reach for it first when Kyu jumps up from the floor to try and win that particular race. “Hey! No shoving in the kitchen!”

* * *

Alright. So attempt number one didn’t go so well. That nest of pests might be a little above Walter’s league after all. Spinarak he can do, Ariados… are another matter.

But he hasn’t gotten where he is in this business by giving up at the first sight of trouble. That being as it is he steels himself at the Café in the local Pokemon center with a warm drink and a snack to melt the fright out of his bones, bribes his leery Scyther with a handful of poke-beans and off they are. He’ll drop Miss Nancy a notice about the spider problem and try for a different section of the road. That’s it. All it is. Gotta take your tasks one step at a time.

To be sure they’ll get past the nest alright Walter takes the van up the road. They drive a little while, about two turns, just to be sure they’ve left the danger zone behind. “Here we are.”

“Scyth.” To say Scyther sounds skeptical of this plan of action would be an understatement.

Walter sighs and looks at his recalcitrant pokemon. “Really? Do you really want to go back and tell our employers a few spider pokemon scared us off?”

“… scyth.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think so.” _Not that I can’t understand where you’re coming from buddy. _Walter shudders at the memory of Ariados legs reaching for him. _Brrrr. _“Alright! Let’s do this.”

It’s a bit creepy here, too. Less cobwebs, though. Walter will put that down in the ‘plus’ column.

They get a fair bit of work in, clearing debris and old branches from the edges of the road. The problems don’t start until he tries to cut one of the trees to proper shape and size.

Walter likes to think he’s good at that sort of thing. Takes pride in his job. Never, in his fifteen years of experience, has a tree he was about to snip a branch off of turned to him and stared into his eyes with a baleful red eye of its own.

“**_Trevenant_**.”

* * *

The kitchen smells sweet and fruity, an oasis of happiness. Annie is about to stick another label onto a jam glass, tongue poking out the corner of her mouth in concentration, when it happens again.

A sound drifts in through the open window that sounds suspiciously like a… “Really, guys, am I imagining this? I swear someone just screamed.”

“Mi…”

“Kyu.”

Oh well. Might be a wild pokemon out and about, there’s enough of them here.

* * *

They run. That’s the only thing you _can _do when you’ve offended a _tree guardian _in the middle of a forest and you’re all out of fire attacks. Gods.

Walter leans against a tree heavily (please let that not be another Trevenant, _please_) and gasps for breath. There’s an insistent stitch in his side. His Scyther looks no better off.

“I think we lost it. What the hell. What is _wrong_ with this place?”

“Scyther…”

“Oh, don’t give me that.” He wags a hand in the general direction of his pokemon partner. “You wanted to keep going too!”

“Scyther!”

“Okay, okay, so I talked you around but you _did _agree!”

“… scy…” That… doesn’t sound promising. With the last two surprises this crazy place has thrown at them still fresh in his mind Walter looks up at Scyther’s hesitant answer immediately. After some frantical searching he finds the large, red eyes that are blinking down at them, apparently unhappy to be woken at such an ungodly hour of the day.

“Oh.” How cute. “Nevermind that, it’s just a Hoothoot.“ As if on cue it hoots softly. What a sweet little thing.

“_Scyther_.”

“Oh, come on, that one isn’t dangerous-“

The Hoothoot tilts its head and takes a step to the side. Then it looks down at the ground under its branch with half lidded eyes. “Hoothoot,” it says gently.

A faint hiss answers it and makes Walter’s neck prickle with cold sweat. Oh no.

In the darkness under Hoothoot’s perch that is, on second thought, a little _too dark _even considering the thick canopy, one after another blue flames spark.

* * *

They almost run her over, basket and all. Annie barely manages to save her jam. “Hey!”

Going by the wild flailing and sputtering interspersed with shouts they don’t even hear her, neither the man nor the Scyther. What rude people-

Before they’ve got to the next bend in the road a Chandelure shoots past her in hot pursuit. Literally. It’s so angry it’s flames are flaring red and orange. “_Chandelure!_”

Oh. “Oh dear.” That has to be a fire hazard. Maybe she should make a note at the firestation? Give them a heads up? “They’ve sure upset that poor pokemon a lot, haven’t they?”

Mimi leans against her legs and looks up at her with adoring eyes. “Mimi. Mi.”

Annie squints down at her darling baby, that couldn’t hurt a fly and would never do anything its mommy would disapprove of. “You wouldn't know anything about this, would you?"

“Mi?”

Yeah. Her sweetheart is neck deep in some sort of trouble. Oh, well. She’s sure she’ll find out about it soon. It can’t be anything too bad.


End file.
